


Short Works Collection II

by Littlebiscuits



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Bad Decisions, Blindfolds, Captivity, Conversations, Drugs, Drugs Made Them Do It, Enemies to Lovers, Hot Weather, M/M, Morning After, Mystery, Sex Pollen, Soulmates, Violence, Woke Up Together, pre-game
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-06-08 19:45:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15250680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littlebiscuits/pseuds/Littlebiscuits
Summary: Collection of Far Cry 5 works, mostly under 1000 words. Various pairings, ratings and themes, written from a variety of prompts/suggestions.Requests are always welcome.





	1. Heat

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently one of the modern conveniences that Eden's Gate disapproves of is air conditioning (Deputy/John Seed, hot weather)

The temperature tipped past a hundred a week ago, and it's been doing nothing but climb steadily ever since. The air feels like a constantly smothering hand, and the sun is so bright and so vicious that Rook's starting to think it's doing it on purpose. He took off his gloves four days ago, he'd take off more if he didn't need pockets for all his ammunition and throwing knives. If he didn't think his holster would chafe like hell.

Every firefight is turning into an exhausting, sweaty slog of brain-melting misery. Even the peggies don't seem to be trying any more. He's pretty sure he didn't even shoot the last few, they just keeled over from heat exhaustion. It might have been kinder if Rook _had_ shot them.

The broadcasts from John are starting to sound less like weirdly flirtatious monologues of sadistic madness, and more like grumpy, heatstroke rambles, and Rook knows exactly what that feels like. Apparently one of the modern conveniences that Eden's Gate disapproves of is air conditioning. Proving that Joseph is an actual monster.

The night's are barely any cooler, you're just hot in the brief stretches of darkness too. And staying inside any building feels like being slowly cooked from the inside out. Once the sun comes up the whole cycle starts all over again, heat ramping up a notch higher than the day before, with no respite. It's like it will just continue until everyone eventually catches fire.

Rook's the one who calls a ceasefire just before lunch, and the peggies, all beards and hair, and too many holsters don't even put up a fight. They just find the closest shade and collapse into it.

They sprawl out ten feet from each other, under the roof of a farm, in the only shade for miles. One of the peggies, whose name Rook learns is Stan, brings him a glass of water from inside. Rook thinks that means he's now physically incapable of killing the man. Stan may be his new favourite person in the whole world.

And that's how John Seed finds them.

He shows up trailing two stern looking peggies, and the ones sprawled in the shade make noises like they'd rather do anything else in the whole world but get up and start fighting again. But they start to gather their guns and boots, find their discarded shirts, put their pants back on.

Rook doesn't move, he accidentally left one of his boots in the sun and he's fairly certain that it's actually melted. It's gone lunchtime, and it's officially a dystopian hellscape out of the shade. He's not going anywhere, John Seed will have to pick him up and throw him over his shoulder if he wants him anywhere else.

Honestly, John doesn't look much better than him. His vest is wet down the back, shirt wrinkled to hell, it's bunched and damp everywhere John's body moves, sweat shines at his throat and hairline, eyes pinched behind his sunglasses.

Rook feels miserable just looking at him. He kicks out a lawn chair next to him.

"Will you sit down before you fall down," he says simply.

John scowls at the chair, but seems to eventually decide that he's too hot to work up anything in the way of genuine anger or religious disapproval about their impromptu détente.

He sighs, heavily, and then sprawls out next to him.

Stan brings John a glass of water too, though Rook doesn't fail to notice that John's has ice in it. After a long pause, John downs the entire thing, minus ice, then unbuttons his vest and flips it open

"Was this little moment of fellowship your idea?" he asks curiously. God, he even sounds dry, voice a croak of misery.

Rook grunts an affirmative.

"Today we're not enemies, because if we were then I'd have to run around and shoot at you, and then escape. Which it's too damn hot for."

"I don't want to fight with you, Rook." John reaches over and tips what remains of his ice into Rook's glass, which is oddly generous of him. "We don't have to be enemies. We could be something else together, something important. If you just _listen_."

John smiles at him, that slow, convincing smile, he's still confident he can make Rook see eventually.

"What would you do, if we weren't?" he asks. "If it wasn't a choice you had to make?"

Rook considers the sun, the hazy, misery stickiness of his own body, the overworked slurry of his brain. He thinks about what he'd do, if Eden's Gate didn't exist. If it was just Hope County, hot and unpleasant in the afternoon. John Seed a stretch of sweaty clothes and white smile beside him, a friend maybe? Friends with benefits? Or something more, something messy and ill-defined, teasing and sharp. Probably the last one.

"If we weren't fighting, hell, I'd probably drag you inside the house, see if the shower works. Pull you out of your clothes and into the spray. Maybe press you up against the wall and kiss you until you stopped seething - I can't imagine you not pissed about something." Rook can't help it, the heat always makes him want to fuck, even if the rest of him knows from experience that it'll just leave him sweaty, overheated and miserable when he comes down. "Hike you up the wall and get all the way inside you." Rook gets stuck picturing it, hammer of cool water on his back, John Seed wet and naked, pressed to the tiles, fingers dug into his shoulders, all desperation and sin. "You'd probably disapprove of a lot of it. But you'd still say yes - if we weren't enemies, that's what I think we'd be doing."

He finishes the last half of his drink, ice long melted.

John's own glass is rolling in the dirt somewhere.

"But I've probably spent too long in the sun."


	2. Intervention

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Rook's friends make some observations, and Rook regrets all of his choices (oblivious Deputy, implied pairings)

Rook wakes up tied to a chair, which is odd, because the last thing he remembers isn't roaming around Hope County antagonising one of the Seeds. The last thing he remembers is drinking in the bar, with his friends. Someone turns a light on, and he blinks at the rough circle of faces around the table. 

He knows all of them.

"Why am I tied up? Nick Rye, did you _drug_ me?" 

Jess raises a hand. "Nope, that would be me."

"This is for your own good," Grace says firmly. "Because we've all been witness to the increasingly disturbing radio conversations you've been having with John Seed."

"Yeah, we're worried there's a very real possibility that you might lose your mind, and stick your dick somewhere you shouldn't." Sharky's nodding.

" _What_?" 

"There are safer things to stick your dick in," Jess says flatly. "Like a bear."

"I haven't -" No one's listening to him.

"Or a hornet's nest," Hurk adds.

"Or a blender." Nick rocks back on his chair.

"Can we stop discussing my dick please." Rook's regretting all his friendship choices right now.

"Well we wouldn't have to if it didn't make so many poor choices," Hurk says.

"I haven't - I haven't made any choices, John uses the radio to threaten me."

"Uh huh." Grace sounds unconvinced.

"Yesterday he spent ten minutes telling you how much he wanted you under him," Jess reminds him. "I know, I had to listen to the whole thing."

"He was threatening me with torture," Rook counters, because he remembers that radio call, a lot of sharp tools had been described in detail. John had been breathless and angry.

"Oh, he was threatening you with something."

"How does that even work though?" Nick wants to know.

Everyone looks at him.

"No, Jesus, not _that_ , I got that part. I mean, Eden's Gate, all that shit. Isn't it a sin, no fornicating. Even if John wants to he's not allowed."

"Please," Jess says. "John Seed is hanging on by a fucking thread at the best of times. He's a man used to getting what he wants, when he wants it, and Eden's Gate has had him in a cock ring and handcuffs for the last few years. The man is an inch away from literally begging Rook to put his dick in him."

"Now that's a mental image," Nick says unhappily, tilted chair thunking onto all four legs again. 

"He had Rook tied up in a room, all ready for confession and inappropriate touching, and then bam, he escapes out of there before John even gets to warm him up a little. He's probably been thinking about it ever since," Hurk adds.

"Warm me up a little?" Rook repeats with a frown.

"Jerking off over it ever since," Jess clarifies. "Probably picturing all sorts of fucked up shit."

"Like what?" Sharky asks from across the table. "I mean I'm obviously agreeing, I'm just curious if we're like...picturing the same sort of stuff."

Jess throws a cloth at him.

"And, whether you realise it or not, you're encouraging him." Grace sounds grumpy now, as if she thinks Rook might be doing it on purpose.

"You are in no way shutting that shit down," Jess agrees. 

"It's not just John either, don't think I haven't seen Joseph dragging you in at every opportunity, getting his crazy hands all over your face."

" _Joseph_? Come on, you have to be kidding?" Everyone has gone mad, it's the only explanation.

Grace shakes her head.

"He was blessing me," Rook protests. "It seemed rude to make him stop."

"Stroking you," Grace clarifies. 

"He's religious, religious people do that," Rook argues. 

Nick sighs, like he's hopeless.

"It was more of a caress really, very gentle," Hurk agrees. "I might have been into that, if, y'know, not Joseph Seed."

"Nope, I gotta agree with that one," Sharky says, pointing a beer at Grace. "Now there's a man that wants to put you on your knees and make you worship him."

"Doesn't he want to do that with everyone?" Nick asks, warily, in case that leads somewhere he doesn't want to go.

"Yeah, but -"

"I swear to God, Hurk, if some filthy baptism joke comes out of your mouth I will pour this beer over your head," Jess tells him.

"Awh, damn it," Hurk says miserably. "It was a really good one as well."

"Jacob too," Grace points out reluctantly.

"Jacob has done nothing even remotely suggestive," Rook protests. Because that one he's certain of.

"He made you look at a dozen slides of wolves fucking," Jess says. "And gave you a speech about submission."

Sharky's now choke-laughing into his beer.

"He glared at me angrily the whole time," Rook offers. 

"That just makes it _worse_ ," Nick says sadly.

"It was a threat." It was probably a threat?

"We're just saying, Eden's Gate is kind of obsessed with you," Jess says. "And you not noticing is getting weird."

Hurk nods agreement. "It's like that experiment where you leave a kid in a room with a marshmallow, and then promise them more marshmallows afterwards if they don't eat it. But they can't. They _eat_ the marshmallow." 

"You're the damn marshmallow," Grace tells him, in case he hasn't worked that out. "No, offence, because I've fought with you for months, I'd choose you to watch my back over anyone alive. But I don't understand how you can have that one-man-army, semi-indestructible force of nature thing you have, and still be such a fucking idiot sometimes."

"That was kind of nice," Rook says.

"That was not a compliment, that was the despair of someone who's seen you try and get into a can of peaches with a blow torch."

"It was half a compliment," Rook allows. "And I was trying to flambé the peaches."

"That doesn't make it _better_." Grace is trying not to smile.

"Damn it, untie me and give me a beer," Rook demands. "I feel like I deserve it."


	3. Limited Exposure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Bliss is unpredictable, and Rook's life gets a little more complicated (Deputy/Joseph Seed, wake up together)

This is not the sort of afternoon Rook expected to have when Dutch grumbled out something about a gathering of angels worshipping at the river. He expected to sneak up on some peggies, he expected to take a few out before they spotted him, he expected gunfire and maybe a few explosions, someone might have gotten hit with a shovel, because that happens with alarming regularity. 

None of that had happened.

Some other stuff had happened, but none of it had been expected.

He's naked in a soft curve of ground, the world still Bliss-sparking at the edges. He feels like someone spread him out in the grass and fucked him, at least once. His memories are confusing and unreliable, like half of them might have been hallucinations. Some of them were _definitely_ hallucinations, unless bears have learned to speak English and no one told him.

He's not the only one who'd lost their clothes, and their mind, and that's the part he's not sure how to react to yet.

Joseph has more tattoos than Rook was led to assume, more scars as well, scattered over his long legs - which are still half tangled with his own. 

Rook's learning so many things he didn't know, things Joseph probably wouldn't have shared willingly.

The sun isn't as bright as it could be, because at some point in the insanity of the afternoon, he'd stolen Joseph's sunglasses. They give the world a strangely amber glow, like it's on fire. Which seems thematically appropriate right now. He remembers Joseph cast in the same light, braced over him, preaching some indecent madness of his own making, hand spread open on Rook's chest like he could hold him down and keep him. 

Rook doesn't remember what he'd said, but it had made Joseph lean in, words falling to pieces.

He also vaguely remembers promising to kill Joseph a bear afterwards. He's not sure why, but it had seemed important at the time.

Joseph's frown is deeper without his glasses. His hair tie had snapped at some point, and his hair over his shoulders makes him look like a martyred saint, a naked martyred saint. Rook's feeling vaguely blasphemous right now, even though Joseph probably isn't technically any sort of official Father. 

"I was led to assume," Rook says carefully. "That you were immune to The Bliss."

He's annoyed in some confusing way, that has nothing to do with the fact that he spent the afternoon out of his mind and under Joseph Seed.

"I am resistant, through exposure," Joseph says carefully, he seems oddly reluctant to look at him. Though he doesn't seem angry about anything that happened. "Overexposure is still a danger."

Overexposure, Rook turns the word over in his head. He has vague memories of an angry peggie with a grenade, flung amongst the wildly nodding flowers.

"The grenade in the Bliss field," he says.

Joseph makes an affirmative noise.

Rook pulls himself awkwardly to his feet. It's probably too late at this point to be bothered by his nudity, though Joseph's is still oddly distracting. Rook realises he's still looking at it, makes himself stop.

"Where are our clothes?" Rook asks, that's one of the things he's having trouble with. "I don't remember."

"We threw them in the river," Joseph tells him. 

Ah, Rook remembers now, Joseph had told him that in paradise people wouldn't need clothes, and he'd been very fucking convincing. Then Joseph had been fascinated watching them drift away. He wouldn't stop muttering about the river washing them clean, and when Rook had tried to shut him up, Joseph had smiled and kissed him. As if none of Eden's Gate's commandments on sin had mattered.

Everything had been easy from that point.

Rook lowers a hand, is almost surprised when Joseph grasps it and pulls himself up. He lets go slowly, reluctantly, as if he's not sure whether Rook is someone he's allowed to be intimate with now. But he leaves them standing close enough that someone might think they were friends, or something significantly more than friends. Though what they are at this point Rook isn't sure. They're enemies who've had sex while under the influence of drugs. Trust Hope County to make this complicated.

"I should go." Rook should definitely go. 

He should find his truck - his truck that the grenade had also damaged - ok, he needs to find another car, somewhere, in these woods in the middle of nowhere. Shit, there has to be an ATV around here somewhere at least, they're _everywhere_.

"There is an outpost not far from here. They will have clothes and supplies." Joseph says it easily, but it's clear he doesn't want Rook to leave yet.

Rook pulls a face.

"You want me to come into Eden's Gate territory with you?"

"Or you could walk a mile naked in that direction," Joseph offers with a gesture. "Where I'm sure you'll find the road again eventually." 

Rook sighs, because, seriously, fuck that.

"And what are these clothes and supplies going to cost me?" he asks, because Eden's Gate have not been very hospitable to him so far.

Rook does not miss the way Joseph's eyes drift down his body, before aggressively refocusing on his face. 

"I will settle for reading you relevant passages from The Book, that you will listen to, and contemplate as you go about destroying everything I have built."

Joseph's hands lift, and for a second Rook thinks he's going to touch his face, lean in, but all he does is slowly retrieve his glasses. Which leaves Rook blinking in the light, Joseph watches him, expression strangely soft.

"Then you may go on your way, if you wish, or you may stay and listen further." It's clear what Joseph hopes will happen.

"Why are you trying so hard to convince me?" Rook asks quietly. 

Joseph doesn't answer, he just smiles like it's a secret, and starts walking.


	4. Hitting The Ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everybody loses, and everybody also wins, it's very confusing (Deputy/Jacob Seed, wrestling, violence)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for EmoPenguin4 who encourages me to put more Jacob in things. I hope there's enough wrestling, and it's a little ambiguous. Also, yes it's 1009 words or something. I've broken all the rules!

The music box gets smashed by Rook's boot, tiny pieces scattered in the mud.

Jacob's sniper rifle went off the cliff, and Rook is lucky he didn't go with it. The ground is slick and unpredictable, it's been pouring for hours and visibility is for shit. But Rook doesn't need to see, he has hands on Jacob, water streaming down the other man's flattened point of hair, his clenched teeth, the edge of his beard. 

Lean into the skid, Rook, lean into the fucking skid -

Rook goes down anyway, Jacob a punch of weight against his chest and thighs.

There's no moment of orientation, no catching of breath, Jacob has an arm up under his throat immediately. Rook catches it and prises it forcibly away. Which distracts him just long enough for Jacob to punch him in the face.

Fuck.

The man has a swing like a car door.

It's a fight not to let him get another one in, his fist hits Rook's shoulder instead, and that's almost worse, bone ringing with pain.

Jacob's going straight for an incapacitating injury, all skill and experience, but Rook is almost twenty years younger, and six inches taller, he has mass and leverage. It's a messy, brutal swing of straining arms and clenched teeth, the ground slippery slick under Rook's elbow and shoulder, boot splashing where the river has risen inches up the bank.

Rook doesn't have the other man's intent. Jacob's probably beaten a man to death, and Rook has spent his entire life trying to make sure that didn't happen, to anyone. He can't let Jacob win.

He tries to get an arm up Jacob's back, police trained restraint - and gets a skull against his face for his trouble, which he staggers back from, Jacob follows it with an elbow, and that's not the sort of hit you can blink away, Rook's nose is bleeding and he's slithering sideways, back smacking the mud while his skull rings.

He gets an arm up, instinctively, doesn't even see what hits it, but it hurts like fuck.

Jacob is on him, thighs flung either side of his waist, boots skidding in the mud. They're pulling against each other, taking turns to press shoulders and head into the slippery ground. The side of Jacob's face is slick, and he spits mud in Rook's face, heaves a breath. He's visibly tired, Rook knows he's a lot of mass to try and manage, but he's been on the go since dawn too, and he's barely eaten. Rook doesn't have the energy to thrash around in the mud with Jacob Seed.

The next time they switch places Rook crushes Jacob to the ground, holds him there with weight and fury and fucking exhaustion.

" _Stay the fuck down_ ," Rook tells him.

Jacob smiles at him through bloody teeth, and Rook knows that's a refusal. Damn the man.

Rook's half hard in his jeans, a solid line of distracting, adrenaline fuelled need, pressed into the ridge of Jacob Seed's crotch. So far past the line of ok, a confusing mess that he doesn't mean, that he's crushing into the other man by virtue of their positions and not because he -

Not because he wants.

Though he does.

"You think you've earned that?" Jacob says quietly, and the smiles stays on his face, still half painted red where Rook split his lip open.

Rook's startled by the words. He frowns and shakes his head.

"What? No, I don't -"

"You put me on my back, you should get a reward." Jacob says it like it doesn't happen very often.

Rook's not sure if Jacob thinks he would, if he looks like that sort of man, Rook's so surprised he lets one hand slip free.

He has a moment to wonder if it was just another distraction. But Jacob reaches down, snaps open button and zipper, his large, callused hand pushing into Rook's jeans. It's muddy and wet and sure, cool against Rook's overheated skin and he sucks a startled breath at the contact. Jacob draws him out, tugging denim down at hip and ass. Then digs his fingers tight into Rook's waist and pulls.

The man's equally as likely to stab him in the chest when he's distracted by his own dick.

Rook still wants it though.

He drops his free hand, tugs at the waist of Jacob's pants and underwear, leaves the other man as exposed and vulnerable as him, where he's thick and warm, pale against bright hair, hard enough that Rook has to wonder which of them wants this more.

"Did you think about this?" Jacob asks, voice a drag of air that sounds accusing.

Rook groans and leans into him, pressed into the rain-wet skin of Jacob's crotch, tucked against the jut of his cock, which feels overhot against his own. Jacob grunts at the pressure, teeth briefly clenching. Rook presses his weight down and moves, slow, greedy shoves against Jacob's body, against the tautness of stomach muscles. Where Jacob is warm and alive.

"Or did you think about fucking me? About showing me how strong you are, putting me in my place with weight and force. The things you could make me do if you had the balls to." 

"Shut up," Rook says, shaky and sharp, because it's impossible not to think about it, body twitching and clawing for the edge, under the push of Jacob's voice, like Rook is still his somehow, in a way that he can't see. He tightens the hand that still pins Jacob's other wrist.

Jacob catches his hair, drags him down, bites at the wet curve of his mouth hard enough to bruise.

"Come on, do as you're told," Jacob says fiercely.

Rook chokes and stills over him, cock jerking against the pale expanse of Jacob's stomach, as his orgasm shakes out of him.

Jacob doesn't stab him while he's curled over him. He laughs, soft in his chest, and catches Rook's shaking hand, pushes it down and wraps it around his cock.

"You're not finished."


	5. Familiarity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "John Duncan," he says, and Rook finds himself shaking the man's warm, smooth hand and giving his own name (Deputy/John Seed, pre-game)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for queen_lagertha, who wanted some pre-game John/Rook. Though I didn't manage to get all the brothers in - I might come back to it later. I got a little confused about timelines but screw it, it can be an AU if they don't match.

It's almost the end of Summer, the heat breaking in pieces day by day, cool enough to sit out in it now, without fear of going home burnt red, skin almost too hot to touch. Rook's been enjoying it, taking the opportunity to fish, ATV through the woods, and explore some of the old mines he's been expressly told not to go near. Because he thinks his mom assumes he'll end up crushed in some cave-in, and slowly suffocate to death. If she knew he was also climbing inside some of them, she'd probably ban him from leaving the house forever.

When Rook gets out of the woods he's surprised to find a man in the middle of the road. Not old, mid-twenties maybe? He's all but vibrating with frustrated anger, and everything about him is expensive, all the way from his sunglasses to the fancy car he looks five minutes away from kicking the hell out of. One of the tyres looks like it gave up entirely, it's not flat, it's a fucking mess, half of it furled up and flapping like it's been skinned. 

Rook isn't surprised, Hope County isn't all nice roads, and the ones that are, well they're not always predictably nice. Even if he fixes the tyre, odds are good his nice car is going to be beat to shit within a week.

He spots Rook standing at the edge of the trees, gestures angrily with his cell.

"Fucking thank you, seriously, what is this a ghost town? I cannot get reception for shit."

"No," Rook agrees. "You're on the wrong side of the mountain."

The man huffs out a laugh, and then seems to realise Rook isn't joking.

"Of course I am," he says simply, and tosses his cell through the passenger window. "I suppose a grand vision has to start somewhere though, doesn't it?"

His expression doesn't look certain. Rook's not sure whether to question it or not. 

"John Duncan," he says, and Rook finds himself shaking the man's warm, smooth hand and giving his own name.

He hands the man his fishing rod, and John looks confused but takes it.

"You got a spare?" Rook asks.

John gestures towards the trunk.

Rook hooks the spare out easily with one hand, aware that he's being watched. He lets it rest, while he fishes out everything else he's going to need, grateful that someone was willing to pack for emergencies, though it probably wasn't John Duncan. 

"Well now, aren't you a good Samaritan. Maybe it's not just luck that you found me, or that I found you."

John watches him work, leaning in close, one leg folded over the other, and it's a look that's much sharper than Rook is used to. It's nothing like the look that Sheriff Whitehorse gives him sometimes, as if he's trying to work out whether Rook is going to be trouble.

It's a much different look to that, and he's pretty sure that John thinks Rook is older than he actually is. Because people don't look at him like that. 

Girls his own age are a confusing mess of judgement, beauty and promise that he doesn't understand, though something in him feels compelled to try, no matter what humiliation and regret may result. But none of them come up higher than the middle of his chest, and Rook is still not quite sure how hard you're supposed to touch them, or how much, or if they're actually interested in him, how to tell if they are for sure. He still feels clumsy as hell, like his bones don't quite know how to be so big yet. Girls are confusing. And guys are...probably a thing? Definitely a thing considering the way Rook's skin is prickling and his heart is thudding while John looks and looks and won't stop looking, while he works. More confusing but in different ways. He was hoping it would eventually just get easier. 

John Duncan is interesting and new and _different_ , unsettling in a slick, inviting way, all long planes of not-clumsy skin and bone, blue eyes and half-hidden mouth and weirdly unexpected interest. If Rook was going to lose his goddamn mind over someone, well he could probably pick worse. Rook frowns concentration while finishing up, before dusting his knees off and standing.

John somehow manages to feel so much closer than before. There's nothing but dust and trees and open sky in all directions, no one around to see, and Rook feels flushed and hot and confused, but it's all somehow exciting and new.

"Well I think it's only fair that I repay you for your assistance," John says slowly, smile warm and wide and fixed. 

Rook makes himself stop looking at it, meets the other man's eyes.

"I'm headed to look at some property in the area, something I have recently acquired, though as you can see the area is something of a mystery to me. I would be most grateful for some sort of guidance. If it's not too much trouble." There's an amused little snap to his voice, as if he's torn between a job he needs to do, and a natural recklessness that doesn't give a single fuck. There's something weirdly compelling about it.

"Sure," Rook says, because he doesn't think there's a single part of him that wants to say no at this point.

John pushes the passenger seat all the way back for him, and Rook is still afraid he's going to break something, but he folds himself inside. The car feels too small with Rook in it, airless and hot, and he can smell the other man like he'd pressed up against him. Which is a thought that makes his heartbeat stick briefly in his throat.

John puts the car in drive, drags his sunglasses down.

"And if I can provide any guidance in exchange, you just let me know," John says smoothly.


	6. This One's For You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rook wants to watch. But Joseph has so many fucking rules, so many demands. Rook has to settle for what he's given. (Mystery, Deputy/Joseph Seed, Deputy/John Seed)

Joseph blindfolds him.

Rook doesn't know if it's easier like that. If it's easier to sin when there's no one there to watch you. Rook wants to watch him, wants to watch the way Joseph's long, slim legs spread at his waist, the way he rises awkwardly, one hand braced hard on Rook's stomach, one on the slick length of his cock while he sinks down.

Rook wants to watch. But Joseph has so many fucking rules, so many demands. Rook has to settle for what he's given.

He grasps the narrow warmth of Joseph's waist, resists the urge to pull for half a moment, too greedy to wait forever though, to not try and bring Joseph closer. Which drags a disapproving hiss out of the body atop him, a hand that presses him down, demands obedience. And he knows the exact expression fixed on him now. The murmurs of 'impatient' and 'wanton' that would stream accusingly off his tongue.

Rook stills, air choking in his throat, and does as he's told.

Joseph moves in stilted, awkward pushes, careful, like Rook is an indulgence he's still not sure how to make best use of. 

"Fuck, _Joseph_." 

Fingers that trail worn thread and the single hard press of bead, pull his hand to the low plane of Joseph's stomach while he moves, they flatten it against the harsh, raised edges of a scar, laid like artwork on warm skin. The long, fresh, still brittle line of an L where Rook knows that the word 'Lust' begins. He makes a sound in his throat, drags his fingers over it, and the skin jumps and clenches, a soft, bitten-off groan whispering out.

"Joseph, please."

He's denied, pressed down into the sheets with sharp hands, while the other man keeps a slow, agonising pace of his own, leaves Rook gripping and pulling - clawing for relief. Because he wants this too much for anything like self-control.

"Please, God, please, I need -"

A hand crushes down over his mouth and Rook can almost hear the sharply hissed-out reprimand for the blasphemy. But Joseph's whole body flexes and moves, in short, hard pushes that give Rook what he wants, what he _needs_.

Rook is going to fucking _die_.

He can hear the harsh, raspy breathing that says he's not the only one. 

He wets a hand, finds the neglected jut of Joseph's cock and wraps his fingers around it, which makes Joseph's whole body jerk and curl into him, shaking hand gripped tight around his own, trapped and stilled, while Joseph uses Rook's grip to push himself to the edge.

They reach it together, a clench of dragging heat that makes Rook tighten the fingers that still hold a curve of waist, push up, pull in, let it happen. Joseph gasps his name, half caught, while Rook groans around the shove of fingers into his mouth, listens to the shuddering, shaking, noisy choke of pleasure, that echoes around him. 

Until Rook is left in the darkness, feeling dizzy and heavy with pleasure, the weight of a body curved into him, breathing hard, still moving in cruel, delicious twitches.

Eventually the man on top of him straightens, long fingers reach up and dig into the top of the blindfold, drawing it down and off. Rook blinks into the light, squints and looks up, 

John Seed eyes him over the top of yellow sunglasses, hair sweat damp and half in his face, he's open-mouthed, all satisfied eyes and smugness. 

"Was that what you wanted?" he asks.

"Yes," Rook says simply, throat so dry it's barely a croak. He's not sure he can manage anything else. He feels like someone dropped him from a great height, and he's not sure whether he's hit the ground or not yet. He may have actually come apart at all the important, joint-like places. He makes a soft, regretful noise when John separates them, a slightly more disgusted noise when he uses Rook's discarded shirt to clean up.

"If my brother finds out I'm pretending to be him while you fuck me -" John doesn't look particularly offended, face half way to a smile. But then Rook has done his share of fucked up things for him, and to him. John Seed has issues that run a mile deep. He's not always able to tell the difference between what he wants, what he needs, and what's just another sort of punishment.

If this is Rook's own messy little secret, John isn't going to judge him for it.

"Are you planning to confess?" Rook asks - because it's always a possibility. John never did quite shake that craving for messy self-destruction.

That white slash of smile stretches out. 

"And let him even consider the possibility that he could seduce you into the family?" John's expression seems to suggest he thinks that's his job and doesn't want to share, even with Joseph.

"But you'll confess to the fucking?" Rook points out. Because lust is apparently every sexual thought or interaction without love behind it. Sex when you're in love is apparently sanctified by God. Though Rook's not sure how that's supposed to work for married couples who hate each other.

"Lust is a sin," John says, fingers digging in briefly. "It's an indulgence, it needs to be confessed."

"We could just stop doing it," Rook suggests.

John makes an irritable noise and slides down next to him, because he's weak, and Rook thinks he'd rather chew off his own arm than go without this. Rook indulges his whims, his many fucked-up desires, he keeps coming back even when John hurts him, when he hurts them both.

Who knows, maybe eventually it won't even be a sin any more.


	7. This Is Where I Drown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This isn't what he wanted, this isn't even close to fair (Deputy/Joseph Seed, soulmates)

There's already a row of bruises up Rook's left side. It's a slow ladder-throb of pain up his ribs that's making it hard to breathe where he's pulled up, wrists bound together and tied to the fixture in the ceiling. It's getting harder to pull in and stiffen up, to tense the muscle and brace for a blow. He keeps forgetting when to breathe, and every hit catches him only half ready for it. But this is just pain, this is simple in its rawness, this is not the part that's going to break him.

No, it's the music, the fucking music. It's like drowning when you aren't underwater. Rook has no defence against that.

It's going to make him Jacob's soldier, make him Jacob's tool to use. No matter how much blood he bites between his teeth, no matter how much he fights. There's just an endless row of red rooms and violence, and Jacob's voice, Jacob's voice over and over. He's going to make Rook obedient, whether he wants to be or not.

But then one of the hovering Peggies grasps his shirt, tears it all the way up the back, like they're going to whip him. But Rook kicks out, instinctively, when the movement exposes the words that drag down his spine. Words he _cannot_ let Jacob read. Only it's too late, he's being forcibly turned by a strong hand, exposing the letters trailing in sharp, spiky script down his back.

_God will not let you take me._

The musics cuts out, dies like it was never there.

"Cut him down." Jacob's voice has thinned, sharp and flat at the same time.

Rook can hear rope strain and twist, can feel his wrists pull and tear under his own weight.

"Cut him the fuck down, _now._ "

A Peggie pulls him in, reaching up to carve through the rope holding him.

Rook hits the floor hard, knees hating him for it, and he topples forward onto his hands. He thinks he's going to keep falling and land on his face, because there's no blood anywhere he needs it, no control, everything that doesn't hurt is numb.

He's not expecting Jacob, crouched down on the floor in front of him, hands on his shoulders, steadying him. He's too close, and he smells like sweat and oil, the lingering scent of guns and wild animal. Rook tries to push away from him. But Jacob flattens a hand at the back of his head, pins him still.

"You would hide this from him?" Jacob says, quiet and angry. There's something tighter underneath, like he can see the storm coming. 

Rook's taken to a small room in Jacob's base, a storage room converted into a bunk room, half piled with boxes. Only the lower bunk is made up, Rook sits on it, watches blood trail down his hands from the gouges in both wrists. 

He waits there for a long time.

When the door eventually opens it's not Jacob in the long slash of light.

Joseph waits, and Rook knows what he wants. Rook has never spoken directly to Joseph, never given him that. Because Rook knows that would have revealed everything, and he hadn't wanted it to be real, he hadn't wanted Joseph to ever know. 

It doesn't matter what he chooses, what he opens his mouth and gives him, it's already there.

"I don't want you," Rook says simply.

Joseph's whole body stiffens, before very slowly relaxing, a sound drawn out of him, relieved and wounded at the same time. Suddenly some of his intensity, his refusal to stop, makes some sort of sense. Because he's been rejected for almost half his life. Rook wonders absently how much of Joseph he's responsible for. Whether this was all a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Instead of responding, Joseph seats himself in the chair in front of him. He lifts a hand for the mess his brother has made of Rook's hands. Rook's too tired to protest. Too tired to make anything of this, when it's been everything he's thought about for the last month. Everything he's tried not to think of. He lifts his hands, lets Joseph draw them in and settle them in his own lap. He opens the first aid kit beside him, sets to cleaning and bandaging Rook's wrists, though his eyes stay longer on Rook's than the skin he's tending. Every movement is careful, but Joseph's expression is a messy conflict of hope, satisfaction and anger. Something that could catch fire at the spark of a match. But Rook is too damn tired to be the one to light it.

"You will join us," Joseph says quietly. 

"You're a madman," Rook says simply, tiredly, because what did he ever do that the universe would give him this, and expect him to be happy. "I don't want any of this." 

"You will _join_ us," Joseph says, like he hadn't heard him, rolling the edge of a bandage in slow movements around his wrist. "You will understand."

"I'm never going to understand you, and I don't want to. The person you are -"

Joseph looks at him.

"And who are you?" he asks tightly, thumb biting into the bandage he's just carefully laid. "I have done nothing but try to save you. But I have seen you carve a mountain of corpses in your quest to destroy what I have built. So certain that I am wrong that you would let everyone burn to prove it. You are lost in darkness, leaving chaos in your wake, and you do not even see it."

Rook says nothing. 

"You have been chosen for me," Joseph says softly. "And I will save you, I will temper your wrath, and you will join your strength with mine. I will make you understand."

Joseph's hand curls tight around his arm.

"God means us to be together, and there will be no disobedience."


	8. We'll Just Call This A Draw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Does it count as an orgy, if four of you are family, one of you is technically behind enemy lines, and everybody is high? Rook is going to vote no. ( Deputy/Joseph, Deputy/Jacob, Deputy/John, Deputy/Faith, Sex pollen)

Rook wakes up too hot.

He reaches down with an arm, intending to push the sheets down, or stretch a leg out, something to cool down a little. 

But instead his hand meets skin that isn't his own, which confuses him for a minute, until he works out that someone's draped half over him, heavy with sleep, all angles and bones. He thinks he's touching the warm plane of a back, fingers skipping across its surface where dips and rises add strange texture to his exploration. 

Judging by the way Rook's body feels dishevelled and interestingly bruised, they'd had sex, and he obviously felt comfortable enough afterwards to fall asleep with them. Nick and Sharky have been bothering him to find someone to work his excess energy out with, worried that he was working too hard, and wasn't taking time to live like a human being. They'd told him he should forget about the cult for a while, make connections, have some fun, burn through a little adrenaline. But Rook has been so busy he's barely thought about it, beyond the occasional solitary moment he has to himself, when things aren't exploding. It's hard to meet people when everyone is shooting at you, and half the county joined a cult.

Apparently he did find someone, someone male - though that seems like a lot of body parts for one person? They're sprawled tight and warm against him, like they've earned the intimacy, naked by the feel of that long stretch of skin.

It occurs to Rook, slowly, while he feels the soft rise and fall of someone else's chest, the sigh of lazy contentment against his collarbone, that he was supposed to be on a scouting mission. The last thing he remembers was scouting along the river, trying to avoid the Bliss, keeping track of the Peggie patrols. There had been a lot of Bliss, and someone had been laughing.

Rook doesn't remember coming back from that scouting mission.

He opens his eyes, blinks into the light, and looks down, hoping that will answer a couple of questions. He finds the line of a nose, beard, mouth. Rook's hand stops moving...goes very, very still. Because the naked body draped over him, like it owns him, belongs to Joseph Seed.

It's a strangely slow panic, that starts in his gut and floats upwards. Though Rook is starting to notice a few other important things. The leg thrown over him on the other side doesn't belong to Joseph, it belongs to his brother John, and so does the arm curled round his waist. The last time Rook remembers seeing John the man had threatened to cut him open, with what could only be considered unnecessary glee. But this time he's just soft lines of naked, tattooed skin, one of John's legs is pulled up, and slipped between his own, and Rook's hand is curled just above the knee.

But there's also a third arm, stretched over John's waist to reach him, scarred enough that Rook doesn't need any more information to know that it's Jacob's. He's the one who has fingers spread on Rook's bare stomach, heavy and warm, far too close to every delicate part he owns, and would probably not have let Jacob anywhere near in his right mind.

They're not even in a bed, they're sprawled in a pile of pillows and sheets in the bedroom of some empty house, and Rook doesn't even know where he is, doesn't know what he's been doing - aside from the fucking obvious, from the obvious fucking, _Jesus_.

Someone makes a sound, soft, feminine, and Rook suspects Faith is here somewhere too. God help him, Rook thinks he might have had sex with every single member of the Seed family. Possibly all at the same time. 

He stares at the ceiling. But his brain seems to realise there is absolutely nothing it can add to that. Though it does helpfully try and shake some memories free for him, and that is not helping. That is not helping at all.

Rook needs to get out of here, before they wake up. He needs to get out of here before this becomes somehow a thing that happened, and not something that might have been a particularly stubborn and persistent dream - that left bruises on his hips the shape of Jacob's fingers. 

He lifts Jacob's wrist, and very slowly eases his hand away, until it's above John's thigh. Then he drops it very carefully, but it still makes a noise that causes him to briefly freeze.

John is more difficult - John wants to _keep_ him, all sleepy press of skin, and resistance to being moved, even under the influence of sex flower induced unconsciousness. There's a questioning murmur against his throat when he tries to slide out from under John's arm and leg, like John wants to know where he's going and why. But Rook does eventually manage to leave him huffing sleepy disappointment into the pillow.

And then it's a just a matter of easing away from Joseph, from the long, naked stretch of him, that Rook is now intimately familiar with. Joseph's hand catches briefly on his waist, a flex of fingers, and a sigh that sounds like a protest, a demand for Rook to stay. But sleeping cult leaders are significantly less persuasive.

Rook slips free, and once he's upright his whole body is all aches, and bruises, that helpfully remind him how enthusiastic he was, in his quasi-traitorous, Bliss-induced, sex adventure. He carefully steps his way through everyone's legs, and there are so many clothes on the floor. Only Faith's are obviously not his in the faint, early light. Faith who's curled around Joseph's back, face pressed into his hair like she wants to be carried in her sleep.

But there's a shifting of skin against sheets, while Rook hastily dresses. He's not the only one awake now, and when he looks up, from his clothing hunt, Joseph has already pushed himself upright, hair loose around his shoulders. He blinks as if the whole afternoon and night hits him all at once, a strange twitching sort of shock. He makes a sound in his throat, and Rook can't tell if it's good or bad, but he has to leave. Now. 

"Rook -"

"I'm just going to -" Rook knocks into the doorframe trying to get into his pants, rights himself, pulls them the rest of the way, zipping and buttoning.

Jacob's moving as well now, a slow shifting of his wide shoulders, like he's an inch away from rolling over, and seeing what all the noise and tension is about.

Rook reasons that he doesn't need boots.

He'll find some more boots, somewhere else.


End file.
